i couldn't love you any better

i haven't posted in over a month. i am so sorry. please stop yelling at me. no, keep yelling at me. i like it. anyway this post may be a bit rambly and schizo so i apologize in advance if that turns out to be the case. i've got to get back on the blog...horse. wagon? no, not wagon. that has negative connotations. horse is better. blog...legs? well, never mind. we'll work this out together.

i hope everyone had a lovely valentine's day. mine was fantastic; the best ever. i was sick and i couldn't talk for most of it but it was still the best valentine's day i've ever had and, dare i say, one of the best days of my life, actually. so everyone thank my incredible boyfriend for making me a happy, happy girl and being one of my biggest blogging inspirations.

i'm learning a lot lately. in the wake of a lot of my own mental and emotional issues, i'm learning a lot of things about myself. i'm learning that i'm even more fucked up than i thought. i didn't know that was possible! well, i'm not shaving my head and going to rite aid at 4am every day with members of the paparrazzi, but everyone's got different standards, i suppose.

think about the people in your life who you KNOW love you unconditionally. now think of some of the other people in your life who don't necessarily fall into this category: you're sometimes, or maybe even often, afraid to say what you think or feel because you're worried about what they'll think, or you keep them at arm's length so that they'll never have the chance to get close enough to you to know how you really are. you're afraid that if they learn, they'll leave. you may not think it's true but give it some more thought. your sister or your father who you fight with and then go out and drink with your friends and don't give it a second thought. your best friend of 10 years, who will call you tomorrow no matter what you said last night when you were feeling sad or irritated. you don't censor yourself around them. why? because you know that they won't leave. but maybe your mother has always been judgmental of you, or you're not sure that a particular friend REALLY likes you or is just nice to you for the sake of mutual friends. do you put as much out there? are you as open, as vulnerable, even as angry, to their faces? does the outside match what you're feeling inside? maybe not. why? you're afraid that if you give all of you, they won't like it. they won't respect it. they won't love it. and maybe they'll leave, and you can't bear that, or it may be as simple as not wanting to deal with the drama that will ensue as a result.

i'm willing to bet that you test boundaries with the people closest to you. maybe not as often as you did when you were younger, but if your mother has always, always been there, through thick and thin, you're probably not afraid to tell her that she's driving you crazy. you're probably not afraid to yell at her. not because you don't care about her feelings, but because you know that SHE knows that you love her, and nothing will ever change that, not even a little bit. and you know she's not going anywhere. you could shoot a guy and she could know that you did it and she would still testify for you in court. of course nothing is like the love that someone has for their children, and my parents and grandparents have taught me that. but it is the sort of love that we call unconditional, and i think that it's the only kind worth feeling. if you're going to love someone and allow them to love you back, you have to close your eyes and jump. be you, all you, nothing but you, 100% of the time. if you're not, they won't be able to tell whether or not they actually DO love you, because it's not you that they see.

loving someone and being in love are different. people know that. i'm not going to break that down for you or anything. but at the core, love is love. and i just think that it's all or nothing.